Album: Scott 4
All of the Scott albums are fascinating if challenging listens, but I find the last of them (Scott 4) the most interesting musically and lyrically. This is his first solo album not to contain any Jacques Brel covers, though the influence on his highly imaginative and poetic songwriting is still there. The strings that dominated his earlier albums have also given way to something more sparse and complementary. Seventh Seal sounds like the soundtrack to a cosmic western, a dramatic battle of chess with the Grim Reaper. Knowledge of the Bergman film of the same title isn't essential, but it certainly helps visualise the song. In one of the album's many sharp shifts in style, On Your Own Again is Walker sounding like a sadder, more intellectual version of Frank Sinatra. The World's Strongest Man is the simplest love song on the album, and no less enjoyable for that, with Walker in laid-back scat singing mode as the track fades. Angels of Ashes is my highlight of side 1, a spiritual song about heavenly, unknowable female figures that reminds me of Leonard Cohen at his best. Boy Child is almost its match in terms of majesty, and no less mysterious.
Hero of the War sounds like a pared-down version of a song by Love, with the tambourine sound and (especially) that guitar line, dumm-de-dumm-de-dumm-dum-dum. The Old Man's Back Again has a more soulful, funky sound. Duchess is another highlight, my favourite vocal performance on the album. Hearing this, it's hard to fathom the much darker, misanthropic turn that Walker's music would take in later life. Get Behind Me is the closest Walker gets to a straight rock song, while Rhymes of Goodbye is almost country rock (pedal guitar). After Scott 3 (which Walker says was written in 3/4 time and didn't give people anything to dance to anymore), sales of his albums tailed off until, in his own words, he was considered a "leper" commercially. After years of drinking and only the occasional re-emergence from the wilderness, Walker would come back as an entirely new and original artist in the 80s. Orpheus back from the underworld.
Artist: Scott Walker
Born: Hamilton, Ohio
Released: November 1969
Genre: Baroque
Influenced: David Bowie, Divine Comedy, Pulp, Radiohead
Hero of the War sounds like a pared-down version of a song by Love, with the tambourine sound and (especially) that guitar line, dumm-de-dumm-de-dumm-dum-dum. The Old Man's Back Again has a more soulful, funky sound. Duchess is another highlight, my favourite vocal performance on the album. Hearing this, it's hard to fathom the much darker, misanthropic turn that Walker's music would take in later life. Get Behind Me is the closest Walker gets to a straight rock song, while Rhymes of Goodbye is almost country rock (pedal guitar). After Scott 3 (which Walker says was written in 3/4 time and didn't give people anything to dance to anymore), sales of his albums tailed off until, in his own words, he was considered a "leper" commercially. After years of drinking and only the occasional re-emergence from the wilderness, Walker would come back as an entirely new and original artist in the 80s. Orpheus back from the underworld.
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